What happens to orphans when they don't get adopted?

They spend their childhoods in care (usually with foster families but occasionally in group homes) and are more or less on their own at 18. read more

There's a great organization called Foster Care to Success which helps those who've agreed out of the system do well after they turn eighteen. read more

Adoption is one of the few ways an orphan gets out of the system. But the pressure on the “adoption solution” is immense. Only 1 in 4 children (of the 120,000 children in care) are legally adoptable, and these even include children who are “hard-to-place” because of their age or the apparent severity of a disability or illness. read more

(Don't get me wrong - I know that I have some major hang-ups as a result of that) I know my sister has a lot more baggage than I do, and some of that is the sexual abuse, but a lot more of that is because she desperately wants that family - someone to love her - no matter what she does, that when someone shows that they will do it, she will do anything for them. read more